Strength
by aly.lynn122
Summary: She had given him everything, including the most important advice he had ever received. But only now does Grunt realize how true it was. Figures the only person who would know what it truly meant to be a krogan wasn't an actual krogan herself. Post-ME3, Shepard chose red. Mother-son relationship.


Humans were weak. That's what Wrex had said. "Like the asari, too weak to do whatever it takes." Turians and salarians weren't all that different from humans, but at least they had grown the balls to do something during the Krogan Wars. Sure, Krogan hated their races for it, but hate in itself was a form of grudging respect. Humans, well humans just talked and talked. Asari just waited around for everyone else to die. Humans used all these big words: morality, justice, hope, peace. Still, Grunt had argued with Wrex's assumption. 

"What about Shepard?" he'd asked. Freshly deposited on Tuchanka, scars from the Collectors still scabbing over, only Grunt had gotten away with questioning the clan leader. It hadn't taken long to understand why.

"Shepard," Wrex had said, "Shepard is a Krogan, human DNA be damned. Even Death loses to her."

Now, holding his Battlemaster in his arms and watching her chest rise and fall minutely, Grunt can't help but agree. Shepard, by all means, should be dead. He had needed to throw several tons of rock off of her simply to release her from her tomb. He'd expected a body, instead the young krogan had found her with her eyes open, teeth gritting from the movement of rubble over her crushed body.

Once she had been freed from the debris, it was easy to see why the human squad accompanying him were reluctant to move her. One side of her hair was burnt away, scalp glistening with blood and her face a mess of burns along the left side. Those burns continued down below her neck, where her armor had melted into her skin and blood glued the fibers to her exposed muscles. The gleam of white bone protruding from her elbow had been all Grunt needed to see before he cleared the rest of the rocks from her, and scooped her into his arms. Stretchers be damned, he couldn't wait for humans to sit around and _make a decision_. This was Shepard. If she survived the falling of the citadel, she'd damn well survive the trip to the hospital.

"Thane?" Shepard asked softly, opening her eyes again, though the haze of blood probably didn't allow much sight. Her hand found his chest and she frowned, wincing at the pull of her facial muscles.

"Fuck you, Shepard. You don't even know your own son?" Grunt growled, pushing power and ferocity into his voice in hopes of it firing up Shepard's own. Being her "son" had been a joke amongst the crew at first, but Shepard's small smile at his voice confirmed he wasn't the only one who saw some truth in it.

"Grunt," she replied, voice breaking on his name and her head falling back into his chest. The weakness should have disgusted him. Any krogan worthy of the name would have done their best to walk away instead of being carried. But there was a part of him, a softer, vulnerable part that basked in her trust of him. She knew she was with him, and believed fully he would get her to safety. A brain battered by pain and losing blood should have been panicking, but his Battlemaster was calm and assured in his arms. She'd just destroyed their enemies in the most gruesome battle in the history of the galaxy, and she trusted _him_ to help her. His heart glowed with pride, even more so than the time she'd clapped him on the back when he took the final shot at the Maw on his Rite.

"Hold on, Mother," he commanded, "I'm getting you out of here."

She didn't reply, but her soft smile stayed and he did his best not to jostle her as he ran to the hospital, leaving the human squad behind in the dust. 

* * *

He radioed Wrex on the way, and the clan leader met him at the gate of the hospital. His brow furrowed beneath his plates at the sight of her, but he grinned nonetheless.

"Should have known the void would spit her back out again! I got the humans moving finally, they are ready for her inside," Wrex said, vibrato thick with heaviness that didn't reach his face. As Grunt passed, the krogan warrior reached out a massive hand and brushed the hair out of his friend's face, and gently as he was able. Affection wasn't rare with krogan, in certain situations, but it was reserved only for family. Grunt hummed his approval deep in his chest. No matter what the galaxy said, the Urdnot clan knew Shepard was theirs.

Inside, he laid his Commander on the stretcher the humans had ready for her. The moment she left his arms, the nurses wheeled her away and the two krogan fell into the cramped chairs in the waiting room. The receptionist eyed them suspiciously, but let them be. Five long hours later, a doctor in a medical mask came out with a clean white coat and blood spots on his shoes. He reeked of death. Both Grunt and Wrex rose, looming over the man. To his credit, the doctor met their eyes evenly.

"She is stable. She sustained a lot of damage, we aren't even sure how she is alive. But we've got her on blood, painkillers, and have sedated her. Only time will tell if she can come back from this," he said.

Wrex laughed, earning a look of surprise from the human doctor.

"It's Shepard we're talking about. She'll be fine. This time next week, she'll be drinking us under the table and calling us lightweights."

The doctor frowned, straightening his jacket with a gloved hand.

"We'll have to see about that. I've never seen someone come out from this sort of damage unscathed. She may never walk again, much less fight. I think it's safe to say her days as a soldier are over."

Wrex growled, low in his throat and this time the medic did back off.

"Shepard will be the judge of that," he said. The doctor simply sighed, shrugged, and put his impassive look back on his face.

"I want to see her," Grunt said suddenly, his booming voice startling the doctor again.

"I'm… I'm afraid that's not possible," he said, "Right now we are allowing only immediate family. Since the Commander doesn't have any kin, you'll have to get clearance from the Alliance…."

"Kin? That's her son," Wrex interrupted, bringing his face closer to the doctor's. His stance, posture, and voice all threatened violence.

"Son?" he stammered, looking to the krogan in question.

"Of course, can't you see the resemblance?" Grunt laughed, smacking his armor as he spoke.

"I'm sorry, but we have no… official record of any children. I won't be able to let you in without authorization," the man replied, finding his confidence again. He looked over Grunt with obvious disbelief.

"Authorization? That's my mother, my Battlemaster. Who dares say I am not allowed to see her?" Grunt snarled.

Wrex rested an arm on the younger krogan's shoulder.

"Easy, whelp. Humans have a different understanding of family. You go on back, I'll get the paperwork dealt with," the elder said. Grunt nodded, walking off and through the door, ignoring the feeble protests of the doctor.

"This is a breach in protocol, I'll have you removed!"

As the door closed behind him, he heard Wrex saying, "That woman is part of my clan, and is under my protection! Your human rules have no say here."

Grunt found his way to her room well enough, the stench of her blood was familiar enough by now to follow. He noted with distaste the lack of guard detail outside her door, and tapped a quick message to Wrex about it on his omnitool before using it to hack the lock.

Within a few moments, the door slid open, just like it had when Shepard first taught him. His Battlemaster lay inside, head shaved, every part of her bandaged and reeking of medigel and antiseptic.

Seeing her, Grunt could understand the doctor's concern. Humans looking this bad often were one wrong move away from death. But they hadn't seen the claw marks on the rocks he'd pulled out from over her, or the scattered medigel packs in what should have been her tomb. Shepard had the heart of a krogan, she wouldn't let something stop her from surviving now that she had escaped her grave. For the third time.

Laughing lightly, Grunt pulled up a chair and straddled it backwards, arms folded beneath his chin on the back of it. He was in for a long night. He urged the chair closer to the bed, until he could rest his head on the rail beside her arm. There, his armor still soaked in her blood and the sound of her heartbeat filling his ears, he fell asleep.

* * *

He awoke to something smoothing over his brow plate repeatedly, a hand with too many fingers gliding over his furrowed muscles, soothing them into relaxing.

"Shepard?" he asked, shooting up straight. The chair skidded beneath him, almost teetering until he caught his balance. Her laugh filled his ears, hoarse as it was, and chased away the last fleeting sounds of his nightmare.

"Didn't think you'd get rid of me that easily, did you?" she asked, her hand falling into the bed beside her. Grunt laughed and seized it in his own. She already looked better, her skin flushing with color and eyes brighter than before.

"You? I have no doubt that you will outlive me by centuries, Battlemaster. And when I die, you'll pull me from my grave too and lecture me about shirking my duties."

Her hand tightened in his and she smiled despite the wince her laughter brought.

"Well you shouldn't be dying in the first place," she grinned. With so many tubes and wires and machines, she shouldn't have looked so strong. But Shepard was glowing in triumph, strength radiating from behind her bandages and her smile strong despite the pain pulling at it.

Still, despite her inherent strength and presence, Grunt found himself grasping her palm as though he was a child.

Shepard looked at him, saw something in his eyes and her smile softened. She squeezed his hand in her own before dropping it to reach up and cup his face, her thumb sweeping along his cheek. Here, in the quiet of the hospital room with only her to see, Grunt let his facade fall.

"I thought we lost you," he mumbled. He remembered a similar time, when he'd sustained his first serious injury and had woken up in the med bay. It hadn't been like waking up in the tank. He'd woken up with a chill, aware of his life and world and realizing how close he'd come to losing it all. He'd woken up afraid of death.

And now, after losing Aralakh company, he was no longer a stranger to death. He'd watched his friends fall beside him and had known the pain of living in a galaxy different from the one you woke up in that same morning. Loss changed life for the people involved, but Shepard? Shepard's loss was inconceivable. He began with her. She was the first thing he'd seen in the new world, the first person he'd fought. She gave him his first bruise and his first laugh. She pulled the galaxy with the slightest move of her fingertips and faced enemies in droves he could never have conquered. And as he began with her, he had recalled just how much he felt he had ended with her as well. He wanted her body, wanted to see, to accept this new reality and push on as any krogan would. But Shepard held a part of him that no one else knew existed. Like all Krogan mothers, she held his vulnerability, carried it for him and honed it into a weapon no one could use against him. Even the fiercest of Krogan warriors kissed their mother's cheeks at the end of each battle. She was hard and fierce and unbreakable, but for him, and only for him, she was softness and comfort.

And it was upon realizing this that he had realized he wasn't an orphan after all.

"Do you remember after your Rite, how you'd been limping for three days before I finally dragged you into my cabin?" she said softly.

Grunt nodded, her hand moving with his face as he did. It was a fond memory. He'd found a clan, and he'd been determined not to dishonor them by whining to the medic about a broken bone like a quarian with a tummy ache. But Shepard had ordered him into her cabin via EDI on the third day, and sat him down and set his bone without warning before wrapping it in a thick bandage to prevent too much movement. When he had protested, she'd had none of it, and it was her, not Wrex who taught him what it truly meant to be a krogan.

"You told me, 'Vulnerability is the truest strength, and only the strongest will ever express it,'", he replied.

She smiled with pride, and his heart clenched.

"Any krogan can fight by himself and deny himself everything until he dies, but he will die weak. A true krogan will find the strength to ask for help when he needs it, or else what is the point of having a krantt?"

"Wrex's advisor didn't like it when I told him that exact thing," Grunt laughed, and Shepard dropped her hand onto his shoulder and grinned.

"That's because he was a coward, someone who couldn't find the courage to face his own vulnerability. Many people, not just krogan, don't want to admit scary truths like these. Instead, they deny them. What did Wrex say to him?"

"He told him that it was true, and he'd heard it from the strongest krogan he knew."

Shepard laughed, her hand tightening on his shoulder.

"Good to know my advice sunk in. I told him that after we got his grandfather's armor," she beamed.

Grunt knew she was comforting him, knew her stories were to remind him that she was strong.

"The doctor didn't believe you were my mother," he said, a small, child-like hope lacing his voice. A part of him rejected it was weak, but he knew, with how hard the words were to say, it was strength that made him seek the words he hoped to hear.

"I'll be sure to set him straight when I see him again," she said. Grunt couldn't help the smile that broke out on his face. Their relationship had always been maternal on her side, but he'd never heard her say the words when they weren't slightly joking. He had clan, kin, and enemies to fight. Now he needed only one more thing to feel secure in his place in the universe.

"Thank you, Mother," he said. Shepard's smile broke into a soft laugh, and he thought he saw her eyes tear up slightly before she caught his hand in her own and squeezed it.

"I couldn't be prouder to have you for a son."

And like that, the pieces of the galaxy slid into place once more at her fingertips, and Grunt knew he would forever be in awe of the woman who had raised him. Her pride burned warm in his chest and coursed through his veins like a battle haze.

"Of course I had to be the one krogan in history who will never have the opportunity to live up to his mother," he groaned teasingly. Instead of laughing, he found her hand tilting his chin up to look her in the eye. Serious, eyes boring out past her bandages, her hand not shaking in the slightest as it secured his gaze on hers, she spoke with the pride only a mother could have.

"You already have."


End file.
